JIM GARRISON: A GLOBAL CALL TO ACTION

[Øyvind Solum]

A GLOBAL CALL TO ACTION

FROM: JIM GARRISON

DATE: JULY 24, 2008

THE CRISIS
The crisis of global warming has suddenly moved from the indeterminate future to our immediate present. The current word from leading scientists is that the serious impacts from global warming are already bearing down upon us and will hit us with potentially incapacitating force within three to four years unless we respond decisively.
The gravity of our situation has been detailed by James Hansen, Chief Scientist for NASA, who states in Science magazine that "if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm." Hansen details six irreversible tipping points, including massive sea level rises and dramatic increases and extreme weather events, which are already wreaking havoc around the world.
Add to this the statement of Indian scientist Rajendra Pachauri, who accepted the Nobel Prize on behalf of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: "If there is no action before 2012, that is too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment." He said this in December 2007.
These statements are coming from the most eminent scientists of our time and therefore must be taken seriously. This means that the overriding concern to which we must direct our efforts is that, somehow or other, the human race must wake up to the fact that our days are numbered to 48 months or less before the global climatic situation could synergize out of control and undermine human civilization itself. It is no longer a situation in which we have ten or twenty years to think about something we aren’t really sure will happen. We have only a few years, four at the most, to take decisive action or we will enter a chaos zone that could be more gruesomely awful than anything we can currently imagine.

Because the threat is global, our response must be global. Because the threat is imminent, our solution must be immediate.

THE CALL TO ACTION

We must mobilize a global campaign to demand of our governments that they commit beginning January 19, 2009 with the inauguration of the new American president, to support the proposal put forward by Al Gore July 17th to supply 100% of our electricity from renewable energy within ten years.

Our goal in the United States must be to persuade the new American president to make this a centerpiece of his administration and to do so not in a spirit of fear or despair but in the spirit of John Kennedy declaring that we could put a man on the moon in ten years.

If we could mobilize this kind of campaign and get the world to make this kind of commitment, we will be where we need to be in four years. It will give us the collective capacity to deal with issues that are now global in scope, which is our only real domain of human interaction. It is a call for unprecedented international cooperation around a common challenge.

In the United States we must do two things urgently:

1) We must use every opportunity to open discussions with the John McCain and Barack Obama, demanding that they address Hansen’s and Pachauri’s assertions specifically and decisively. Our goal must be to persuade them to support the Gore Plan and to declare that, if elected, they would lead the world in implementing a ten year global campaign to move from carbon based fuels to renewable energy. Right now, both candidates speak of the problem of global warming only in generalities and without any sense of urgency.

If either candidate would make such a call he would activate a literal army of us who know exactly what is at stake, and the rest of the world would cheer that finally America has regained her senses and is prepared to exert the kind of constructive leadership the world so deeply wants and needs. We must move as a nation from being the chief obstructer of international law and world systems to become its chief exemplar. I think it could be said that quite literally nothing less than this kind of transformation in public and political perceptions will suffice to get us where we need to be four years from now.

2) We must mobilize a global campaign to pressure our politicians from the ground up as well as from the top down. This is the genius of the strategic alliance with Al Gore. It allows us to mobilize citizen networks as well as the political elites. We can thus speak with force at all levels of society, backed by the most eminent scientists of our time, concerning an issue of urgent global concern.

THE REASON WE CAN SUCCEED

What is as hopeful as the gravity of the crisis is the fact that there is a growing global population comprised of Cultural Creatives -- a group that only began to emerge in world culture fifty years ago but which now constitutes fully one third of the public in the United States, Europe and Japan. The implications of this emerging cultural majority are as profound as the consequences of global warming are imminent. They are having a profound influence in the marketplace and form a new voter constituency that is shifting the very center of gravity for politics.

Cultural Creatives are essentially comprised of people who have participated in the social and consciousness movements that have emerged since World War II: the civil rights movement, the environmental movement, the women’s movement, the jobs and social justice movements, the peace movement, the organic food and alternative health care movements, the new spirituality and self growth movements, etc. Integral to the emergence of the Cultural Creatives is the emergence of women’s issues in the public domain.

Two thirds of Cultural Creatives are women, and in many ways the new value system the Cultural Creatives represent is inextricably related with the fact that this is the first time in history that women’s values have been widely and publicly articulated. They are spiritually motivated and committed to personal growth but are not dogmatically religious. They embrace technology and economic development but only within a deep affirmation of the environment and community. They tend to view the world from the perspective of holistic systems. They are the people paying attention to world events and global trends.

This information is based on a new study conducted by Dr. Ray through his Institute for the Emerging Wisdom Culture at Wisdom University. His data shows that Cultural Creatives have the vision to notice the trends, the practical ability to take up the enabling technologies, and the leadership to mobilize against dangers. Research also indicates that they are not yet aware that they exist as a group and therefore have not yet cultivated the power to act collectively or decisively.

Barack Obama is mobilizing a huge mass movement and may well be the next president by speaking to this new value proposition. The voters who can be moved by these new arguments to respond to what actually needs to be done are now numerous enough, influential enough to win elections. The major task therefore is to develop a communication and public empowerment strategy that will identify and catalyze the Cultural Creatives into an even more self conscious and potent a political force.

Remember the famous story of FDR and the labor leaders during the Great Depression: at the end of their meeting, he said to them: “I agree with you. Now pressure me to do it.” In this sense, our pressure is as important as Barack Obama being President. It takes two partners on this one: a worthy president and an aware public. This could be democracy at its best, something not seen since the days of the founding fathers.

A GLOBAL CALL TO ACTION

Because the challenge is global, our thinking and our strategy must be global as well and from the very beginning. The potential is thus not just in the US, but in partnership with other groups worldwide who sense the urgency of the crisis as we do, especially those who have conducted studies on the Cultural Creatives in Italy, Japan, France, Germany, Holland and Hungary. Studies there indicate upwards of 35% of the population are Cultural Creatives. Discussions with counterparts in these countries indicate that they would join us in the United States for this Global Call to Action around the Gore Plan.

This strategy and Call to Action is thus designed to catalyze a global demand that, because it is already backed by one third of the public in most of the industrial democracies, gives us a significant advantage to previous campaigns such as the land mines, third world debt and various human rights issues. We do not have to create a constituency. It is already there. What we have to do is energize it. This is what Obama has just done. We can build on this momentum and shape a global movement that will compel our governments to take decisive action to build a positive future.

For the complete text of Gore’s speech:

http://www.wecansolveit.org/pages/al_gore_a_generational_challenge_...

For further information on the growing power of the Cultural Creatives:

https://www.wisdomuniversity.org/cultural-creatives.htm

For further information on this campaign, contact Jim Garrison at [e-mail]